Media Failure and the Image of Africa

Recent news from Africa has been brutally grim. In last week's Nigerian presidential elections, angry mobs in Kaduna, a mostly Muslim city in Northern Nigeria, hacked to death hundreds of Christians -- a reaction to the reelection of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from Southern Nigeria. In the Cote d'Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo lost a 2010 presidential election to Alassane Ouattara. Citing voter fraud, he refused to cede power to his opponent. Gbagbo's refusal to transfer power to Ouattara prompted an escalation of a long simmering civil war. Since November 2010 thousands of people have died, and many more, fearing for their lives, have fled their homes. On April 11, forces loyal to Ouattara stormed Gbagbo's presidential bunker and arrested the former history teacher. In the wake of Gbagbo's arrest, however, militias continue to skirmish in the streets of Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote d'Ivoire.

So it goes for the news from Africa. Framed by media reports, the image of Africa for Americans -- and others, of course -- consists of tales of unending political riots, cases of fraudulent elections, and scenes of drug-crazed teenage soldiers burning villages, amputating the hands and feet of their foes and raping women, both young and old. There are, as well, the horrifying documentary images of the genocidal conflicts in Rwanda, Congo, and more recently in the Darfur region of Sudan. Add to this lethal mixture of human misery, the social tragedy of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, widespread hunger and the sometimes fatal presence of such diseases as malaria and meningitis and you get the picture: a hopeless continent plagued by intractable problems, a place no one would want to live or visit.

More...